I read this first when I was young, and a few years ago started a practice of re-reading it every winter, whenever I start to feel sorry for myself because it's so cold and dark. Re-reading it as an adult, I'm impressed by how cheerful they remained in the face of tremendous adversity. I love her storytelling, which is so simple on the surface, but really complex enough to entertain both children and adults. I agree with one of Kim Stanley Robinson's characters in the Science in the Capitol series, who suggested this might be the great American novel.

Out of all the Little House books, I probably reread the Long Winter most. There is just something about it that I love. The book opens with the Ingalls family preparing reasonably for the coming winter. Their plans don't take into account an early winter, a long winter, and a hard winter. Once there was a touch of winter in October, it was there to stay. The "good" weather being merely not-currently-in-a-four-day-blizzard. Some days the Ingalls and their neighbors are blessed with two days in between blizzards. So, to begin back at the beginning, the Ingalls family moves to town after the first blizzard in October. It becoming obvious to Ma and Pa that they likely would not survive if they stayed at their claim. They take what provisions they've got, and everyone moves to town. But the provisions that they've got, that they've carefully planned and prepared won't be enough under these conditions. No one foresaw that there would be no trains coming to town during the winter months bringing food and fuel and such. Every person in town feels the stress of it. How will they survive? Will they survive?

This is the book where Laura and Almanzo first meet.

I love the intensity of this one. It's a book you experience. The cold. The hunger. The angst.

Ever since I first read this series at the age of 9 or so, THIS one stuck out in my memory as a favorite. It just seemed so much more REAL than the others, even if, yes, they are all REAL stories. The Long Winter was indeed that, with 7 months of blizzards nearly freezing and starving the Ingalls family to death. As a kid, I liked it for the adventure of it all, as an adult I like it for the sense of realism- they actually nearly died! Starving, eating crushed up wheat, burning sticks of horse's hay to live, it gives one a sense of how hard live truly could be during those times. Also, I love that ALMANZO is a majo player in this book, and I love the Cap Garland character as well. This is by far, my favorite of the series, with good reason, I think! -Jen from Quebec :0)

Gah, I love the Little House books, and none more than The Long Winter, the 6th in the series.

Although all of Laura Ingalls' books have a cozy, homey charm, The Long Winter brings with it a gritier, more menacing realism of what life would actually have been like for the American pioneer. Since it is a children's book, Laura keeps the threat light, but make no mistake, the threat of starvation is a serious and ever present danger to not only the Ingalls family, but all the residents of De Smet, SD in that winter of continual blizzards.

This is the time when you can really see the strength of the family Ingalls. Although I have no doubt that Laura wrote this with the aid of some time-tinted, rosy glasses and a due respect for her young reading audience, I also see that she didn't shy away from showing us how the constant struggle to keep warm, keep fed, and keep mentally strong wasn't pretty and wasn't easy for any of them. Pa's half-crazed tongue lashing at the blizzard, gentle ma's sharp rebuke of her beloved husband, and Laura's fearful initiation into the responsibilities of adulthood all make for riveting reading, regardless of your age.

I love this family, and never more so then in this book. This series, more then any other I can think of, makes me proud of my American heritage and the strength of its earlier settlers. We could all stand to have more of their type of strength and perserverence today.



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2012 personal reading challenge for the month of January:
n  Childhood favorites that influenced my subsequent reading lifen

Adult Equivalent:
n  n
The Endurance by Caroline Alexander

I feel like I'm still processing this book after finishing the audio version this afternoon. It's my first time reading it as an adult and the Ingalls' experience during this endless, brutal winter was even more intense and terrifying than I remembered. They and many others in DeSmet, South Dakota could so easily have starved or frozen to death as blizzard after blizzard after blizzard kept the railroad from delivering food and coal for months on end. It's a story that kept me on the edge of my seat with worry, even though I knew how it would all turn out.

As I listened to descriptions of the Ingalls subsisting for months on nothing but coarse brown bread and spending all day knotting up hay to use in the fire, losing strength as they wasted away from hunger, I kept thinking back to Little House in the Big Woods, remembering the attic there filled with plenty of food for the winter. Not to mention the woods full of trees to cut down for winter fuel. I couldn't help wishing the family had just stayed put all those years ago! What can I say, I would not have been a good pioneer.

As always with the audiobook series, Cherry Jones does a wonderful job of narrating the story, bringing it to life in a new and engaging way. The fiddle music adds so much atmosphere, too. I can't recommend the audio versions enough - they're just great.

Five stars for this tense, vividly written classic. It's one of the best books in the series.

This book chilled me to the bone and left the gnawing pain of hunger in my stomach.

It's amazing how Laura Ingalls Wilder makes you feel like you're right there in De Smet, South Dakota, experiencing the Long Winter with the Ingalls family. This book is an especially good read when the weather is cold! :)

I've noted this before, but I'll reiterate: Before I started rereading the Little House series, I was half afraid the books wouldn't live up to my memories of them as a young girl. But they certainly have, and if possible, I love them even more now because I recognize their quality through the eyes of an adult.

প্রচন্ড তুষার ঝড়ের মধ্যে একটি পরিবারের দুঃখ, দুর্দশা গুলো সুনিপুণভাবে ফুটে উঠেছে। শুধু একটি পরিবার কেন। বইয়ে উল্লেখিত দুঃসময়ে প্রায় প্রতিটি পরিবারের অবস্থা একই ছিল ধরে নেয়া যায়। লেখিকা তাঁর নিজের পরিবারের মধ্যেই সেসব ফুটিয়ে তোলার চেষ্টা করেছেন, এবং সফলও হয়েছেন। সিরিজের এই অংশে কাহিনী কিছুটা ধীরগতির মনে হচ্ছে। এছাড়া বরাবরের মতো উপভোগ্য ছিলো।

Review #1 - The Little House series was so popular in my school in 1975 that after I’d finished Little House on the Prairie, the only book available in my school library was the sixth in the series, The Long Winter. At 400+ pages, it was the longest book I’d ever read, and it took me months. Kids in my class even commented about it. “It’s called The Long Winter because it’s long book.” And that was one of the more neutral comments. Much more typical was, “You’re still reading that?” And from the teacher’s pet: “I finished it in four days.” And so, though I’d been best reader in my class in Manhattan, in my new school in Queens, I acquired a reputation for being a slow reader and therefore, a dumb kid.

What I wish someone had told me back then was that The Long Winter was not meant for a girl of seven. Laura is about thirteen in the book, so the ideal reader is her age or close to it. I’d say the first four books, Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, and On the Banks of Plum Creek, are perfect for kids from grades two through four. Everything from n  By the Shores of Silver Laken and afterward is for fifth or sixth graders at least.

So I had some pretty painful associations with this book, and I didn’t remember much of it. I remember being struck at how Carrie was no longer “Baby Carrie,” but a kid who spent more time with Laura than Mary, who, of course, had gone blind. I don’t remember my reactions to that at all, though it may be that another fan clued me in on how it happened. I do remember the Wilder boys, and of course, the main theme – the big blizzard that kept everyone stranded for months.

When that kid in my class said, “It’s called The Long Winter because it’s a long book,” I took it as him making fun of my stupidity. Now, I see it differently. Perhaps I don’t remember the details of the plot, but I felt The Long Winter. It was hard, it took months, I couldn’t wait for it to end, and somehow, I got through it.

Review #2 - Okay, update since I wrote the above. I re-read The Long Winter in its entirety over Passover, and much of it out loud to my son. He's a teenager who's perfectly capable of reading to himself, but hey, I'll do anything to connect to him at this rough stage. Anyway, we both loved it. It may just be my favorite Little House book of all. And now that I'm learning about Rose Wilder Lane's hand in the books and her libertarian ideology, I couldn't help but look at the book in that light. I've started a discussion, with quotes, at this link: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/5...

Also, I'm not quite sure how I feel about what Almanzo did. I mean, obviously it was heroic, but he got someone else to sell what he wasn't willing to sell himself. It doesn't seem entirely pure. But my husband says that if the guy wouldn't have sold, and then Almanzo refused to sell, then we could judge his actions as wrong. But given the sacrifices he made, one would think that if push came to shove, he would have sold for the sake of the starving community. Any thoughts?

Ok, this book officially scared the holy bejesus out of me! I hate winter!!! Absolutely abhor it. My job is considered "emergency personnel " so regardless of weather conditions I am expected to make my appearance. Laura suffered through SEVEN MONTHS of blizzards. Holy Christ! There was some serious deprivation happening in this small town of about 87 people. Wheat bread and potatoes with tea were the rations. I can currently claim multigrain bread and tons of tea as staples in my apartment, not much else. I eat Panera a lot. And smoothie king. How am I supposed to do that in a major snow incident???? I'm thinking I should start storing some provisions-like ramen noodles and canned tomato soup. Please God never ever let me live through a winter like this. I don't think I can have the perseverance and presence of mind these pioneers had, if for no other reason than I can't stand freezing to death.

Wow! What a story. I'm almost glad that I never read this when I was younger. I don't think I would have appreciated the magnitude of what they had to live through. And it meant so much more knowing that the experiences described here were based on actual events. This definitely deserves its Newbery honor, and I'm VERY glad that I finally got around to reading it! I never thought any of the other books in the series would come close to eclipsing my love for Little House in the Big Woods which I read over and over as a child, but I think this one might have done it. It's a story that makes you cold, but also very grateful for the blessings you take for granted that surround you every day. It also makes me think wistfully of living a simpler life. And now I look forward to reading the next in the series where I know Almanzo again plays an important part in the story!

A favorite quote:
"If only I had some grease I could fix some kind of a light," Ma considered. "We didn't lack for light when I was a girl before this newfangled kerosene was ever heard of."

"That's so," said Pa. "These times are too progressive. Everything has changed too fast. Railroads and telegraph and kerosene and coal stoves--they're good things to have, but the trouble is, folks get to depend on 'em."

Note: I'm shelving this series as both historical fiction and autobiography since it really is a bit of both.

Just as good as I remembered! I adored these stories when I was little - long before the TV show. And this was always one of my favorites, usually to be read in the summer, so all that snow would cool me down. It's been decades since I reread these, and I really felt in the mood for a snow story this winter. The difficulties they overcame were as exciting and inspiring as ever.

NB - There's an article linked to on the Wikipedia page that shows that Wilder's memories were probably pretty accurate, and such a long, cold winter did indeed occur in 1880-1. It doesn't change the story for me, but knowing that it isn't a conflation of hard winters she remembered, but one truly devastating one, makes everything more remarkable.